Fat Tires On Gravel: From Krampus To Gryphon

A computer rendering of the Gryphon Mk3

A couple of things to bear in mind here concerning where I was at in Life in 2022. First of all, Andy's Bike Shop was a victim of the pandemic and closed its doors in December of 2021. That left me without work. I was scrambling to make ends meet and I did receive help unlooked for and I managed to scrape up some cash by doing moving work from time to time for a month spanning the New Year Day holiday. Then I was hired on at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective. But that job had minimal hours and the pay was not all that great.

This needs to be said because when I came across Singular's site in early 2022, I saw The Bike. The bike I had been waiting for was up for pre-order, and it was coming from a brand I had experience with and from a man I knew was a great bicycle designer. This was too good!

It was, of course, the new Singular Cycles Gryphon Mk3. It had everything I wanted in a fat tired, gravel bike with drop bars. Steel frame. Capability to be single speed just in case. 29+ sized rubber was designed to fit. No suspension corrected frame, so the stack height would not be insanely high. I saw the computer rendering and couldn't believe my eyes. This was it! But I was not in an ideal situation to buy anything.

But times being what they were, the Singular Gryphon Mk3 wasn't due in until later in 2022. October was the first date given. I could manage to sell some stuff, scrape together some cash, maybe go without some things, and order the frame and fork. At least then I'd not miss the boat on this chance, because Singular is a small company, and who knows when, or even if, I'd ever see another chance like this. The price was more than fair. 

Another rendering of the bare frame and fork.

Well, Sam of Singular saw my post I made back in February of 2022 and responded with a fair offer to put something down on the frame so he had a commitment from me. I decided to jump on that, and so I was onboard to get the frame and fork. All I had to do was wait.

And that wait was longer than I anticipated it to be, but I was okay with that. Meanwhile I had more time to gather funds and parts. I wrote an explainer post as to what I was thinking in May of 2022 which you can read HERE. 

So, the bike did not actually land until the beginning of March of this year. A full year after I decided to pull the trigger, but by that time I was in a much better place with my job and the money wasn't nearly the issue that it had been. So, I actually was fine with the longer than anticipated wait. 

Of course, I have a lot of posts up on this bike already, so I won't get into that in this series, but I do want to make one last post to kind of tie together this journey to get that fat tire gravel bike that I believed could happen, and thanks to Sam at Singular Cycles, it did happen. 

Next: Does The Gryphon Mk3 Measure Up to The Original Vision?